THE bed creaked as Bella lay her head on Edward's hairy chest. Edward kissed the top of her head and ran his fingers down her jet-black hair. He whispered, "I'll go with you to Southeast Asia."

Bella closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She was only trying to ease the pain in her heart, but on the process she inhaled his manly scent, which made her sadder. "If only that's possible," she told him.

"Our love for each other will make it possible," Edward said.

"The people in my town will figure out in no time that you're different," she said. "You can't keep a low profile there. My countrymen are fascinated with white-skinned foreigners. They will keep an eye on you, and eventually notice that you don't go out at day, you don't eat, and you don't get old."

"You said we can live in a city," Edward said. "People won't notice me much there. I can work in a call center at night and stay indoors at day."

Bella sat up, draping the sheets across her bosom. "The risk is still too great," she said.

Edward sat up too. "Don't you want to be with me? Don't you love me?"

"You know how much I love you," Bella said, staring straight at Edward's eyes. "You're the first man in my life. It's just that I don't want to put your life in danger. What good will our love be if you're dead?"

"But I'm already dead," Edward said.

"You know what I mean," Bella said. "If people found out you're a vampire and drove a stake through your heart, you'd turn into ashes, gone forever."

"Then stay here in Boston, Bella. Live with me. My family has been here for nearly four hundred years, and we're able to survive."

"Barely," Bella said. "And that's another reason we can't be together, Edward. Your family needs you to keep your bloodline alive." Edward belonged to a unique and nearly extinct race of vampires. They were not humans who had been turned into vampires. They were born vampires and had vampire parents, and they could only breed with their kind. "Edward," Bella said, "I wish you could just bite and turn me into a vampire so that I could bear you a child. But no. If you drained me of my blood, I would die like any other victim. I am nothing but a threat to your family. They will kill me once they knew about us."

"I can protect you from them, Bella. I'm more powerful than any of them. If I have to, I will leave them so that I can be with you."

Bella stepped down the bed and started putting on her clothes. "You can't do that. You may be an orphan, Edward, but the control of your parents' wealth is in their siblings. If you abandoned your uncles and aunts, they would cut you off from your inheritance. How will you go about living without money? Even if you're the strongest vampire, you can't protect yourself against humans on your own, especially at daytime. Even if I am with you, I'm not powerful enough to keep you safe all the time. Without money, Edward, no one will survive, whether vampire or human."

"So this is about money," Edward said. "You don't want to live with me because if that happens, I will be poor. Money is not everything, Bella." He started to put on his clothes, too.

"No, money is not everything," Bella said. "But I know its value. I came from a Third World country, Edward. I worked my way to college and to this Ivy League scholarship. You underestimate money's worth because you grew up rich. You don't have to compete with human beings. All you have to do is wait for a little vampire girl to grow up so you can copulate with her."

Edward clenched his jaw. He seemed to be restraining himself from speaking, and when he opened his lips, he told Bella, "I know what you're trying to do. I know more about being human than you think. You are saying all these things to hurt me, to make me hate you, so that it will be easier for me to forget you. But no, Bella. You're wrong. I'm not easily discouraged. I will fight for our love."

Bella held back her tears. "Don't try to be romantic," she said. "I don't love you."

"I don't believe you," Edward said. "You said not a long while ago that you love me, and I could see in your eyes that you were telling the truth."

"You misread me. You know less about being human than you think."

"Am I not the first man in your life?"

"It doesn't mean anything, Edward. I gave myself to you because I just wanted a white lover, and I just wanted to know how it would be to sleep with a vampire." Bella ran out of the room, summoning all her will not to look back, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

EDWARD stared at the silhouette at the threshold of the room. How he longed to touch those curves, made more alluring by the pale sheen of moonlight. For weeks, he thought of nothing but her. "You're back," he said, not moving from the bed.

Bella walked to the bed and sat beside him.

"I know you really love me," Edward said.

"Yes," Bella said. "I love you. I've loved you since the first night I saw you, and I will love you forever."

Edward pulled Bella close to him. Their lips, and tongues, melted with each other. It was almost like the first time; they wanted to stretch each second to eternity, to fill one's being with the other's taste. Edward only stopped when Bella started to whimper, hurt.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Bella merely smiled and hugged him. They clung to each other for some time.

He said, "You've come back to stay with me forever."

She slowly took her arms off him. In a soft voice she said, "My flight's tomorrow."

Edward's mouth fell open. "I don't understand, Bella."

"I'm leaving you, Edward."

"I thought you love me."

"I'm coming back. Please listen to me. I have to go home to continue doing my responsibilities, but I will come back here. You know that my family is barely able to make ends meet. I send half of my scholarship allowance to them, and I am expected to help my parents send my younger siblings to school. Besides, I have to go back to my country because as stipulated in my contract, I have to serve there for two years after completing my studies here."

"So you will come back to me after two years?"

"Yes. I'll make sure that by that time, I've saved enough for my siblings."

"I'll help you," Edward said. "I'll send you money."

"I won't accept that, Edward. I didn't take you as a boyfriend for your money. I've worked for everything I wanted to achieve. I can do it on my own."

"Bella, I'm giving the money freely, not because I want something in return."

"I know, but I don't want that money. It's your family's. It's enough that two years from now you will turn your back on them. They will be needing their money more than ever."

Edward sighed, and nodded.

"Will you wait for me?" Bella asked.

"I don't think I can last a day without you," Edward said. "But if I have to suffer for two years to have you completely for a long time, I will do it."

Bella said, "In two years, Chelsea will be seventeen, old enough to give you a child. You might . . ." The thought of Edward holding another woman in his arms crushed Bella's heart.

"Please don't say that," Edward said. "You know my heart beats only for you."

"I've seen her, Edward. She will soon become a very beautiful woman."

"I've long made up my mind, Bella. Even before you gave yourself to me, I knew you're the one who should be my wife."

Bella hugged Edward. "I wish I don't have to leave. But you know that I have to do this. I have a responsibility to my family."

"I understand. I could also use the two years to learn to live away from my family. When you return, we will both be ready to be alone together, safe from humans and vampires."

Edward took Bella's face in his hands and kissed her. Bella responded with equal passion. Slowly he lay her down on the bed. They made love as if it was the last.

BELLA stared at herself in the large mirror. Even under the pale glow of the candlelight, the fine wrinkles under her eyes were still visible. She looked ten years older than her age. But she assured herself that love knew no age or time.

She heard footsteps, though she could see no other image in the mirror except hers. She turned and saw Edward.

He looked much the same way as the last time she had seen him. He was still dashing. "Bella?" he said.

"Yes, it's me," she said. "Didn't you recognize me?"

Edward's face was filled with mirth. "Of course, I knew it's you. It's just that . . ."

"I've grown old."

"No . . . no. I didn't expect you would still come back."

"I have. Do you still love me?"

"Of course, I do. You never went out of my mind. I love you, Bella. I will love you forever."

They rushed to each other's arms. Tears fell from Bella's eyes. When Edward removed his arm from her, she stared up at him, anticipating the kiss she had terribly missed. To her confusion, he stepped back.

"What took you so long, Bella?" Edward said. "It's been seven years. You said you'd come back after two."

Bella's heart began to thump. Had Edward changed? But he had just said he still loved her. She told him, "I couldn't leave my family right away, Edward. I had to take care of my siblings. It took me seven years instead of two to make sure they would be all right. Even until now, they still need me. But I decided I'd worked hard enough for them. It's time I sought happiness for myself."

"That's what I also thought," Edward said. "I know you are a very responsible person. That's one thing I love in you."

Bella smiled. She hugged him again, resting her head on his shoulder, and that's when she noticed the coffin. It was near the wall. Its lid was open, and lying inside was a woman in white nightgown.

Bella took her arms off Edward and walked toward the coffin. The belly of the woman in the coffin was protruding, and her beautiful face looked familiar to Bella.

"I'm sorry," Edward said behind Bella. "I waited for you, Bella. But you didn't come. I thought you had forgotten me."

Bella was frozen on her feet. Chelsea had grown into a beautiful woman, just as Bella had thought. The female vampire must be the same age now as Bella when she first met Edward.

Edward came to the coffin and touched the edge. "Chelsea is carrying my child," he told Bella. "She will be asleep until she gives birth. That's why I have to watch over her all the time."

"Edward, you said you didn't want her," Bella said. "You said you wouldn't marry her . . ."

"Please forgive me, Bella," he said. "I know I broke my promise. But I'd like you to know that I didn't give up on us right away. After two years of waiting for you, I waited for a couple more. It is only a few months ago that I decided to marry Chelsea."

"You were taken by her beauty."

"No, Bella. I was only trying to be responsible. Isn't that what you taught me? I thought of the future of my family, my race. I found out that our number is dwindling much more seriously than I had thought. There's no one else who could take Chelsea as a wife. If we didn't marry, my family's lineage and hers would end with the two of us."

"Do you love her?"

"Bella, please."

"You love her," Bella said in a calm voice.

"Not as much as I love you. I know we can no longer be together, Bella. But you will always be in my heart. I will always—"

"It's all right, Edward," Bella said, forcing herself to smile. "Love her. Love her as much as you love me. Love her more than you love me."

Edward stared at her, not sure how to react.

"I love someone else, too," Bella said. Edward's face was filled with pain. Bella knew he could sense she was telling a lie—or he would figure out later that she was telling a lie—but for now, it was enough for her to see him hurt. "Edward, we are simply not meant for each other. Our worlds are too different."

"Bella . . ."

She rushed away from him, out of the door. Tears fell from her eyes, but unlike seven years before, they no longer flowed smoothly. They made tiny detours down her wrinkled, sagging cheeks.

END